would it be an acceptable strategy to use an article of clothing to tie the knife up?

5/18/2004 3:17am,

Spunky

Interesting comments so far, a lot of good points.

Just to play devils advocate, why necessarily go the the side with the knife? If you control at the other arm you can keep the knife away from you through simple body mechanics... e.g. if he's holding it in his right hand, if you get the left shoulder to rotate forward the right shoulder has to go back.

Take a look at this clip of a waza called gekken (moon liver). It's a toe kick to the liver, the arm is locked straight and cranked up as the shoulder is brought forward and down (o-gyaku, great reversal). Applied to the off-hand, the idea here is to keep the knife away from you while taking him face down so he can never use the weapon. The opening punch has very little to do with this kata so ignore that, look at it from the point where the two fighters have come to grips and imagine the "attacker" with a knife in his left hand in this case.

I agree Drunkenj, its interesting to hide some weapons on your person during training and pull it out from time to time. I want to get other people doing this more often here, you should develop a sense for when someone is going for a weapon.

5/18/2004 3:46am,

*consideres his checkered past with knife threads* .. oh, what the hell.

I was doing knife drills with a BJJ/JKD/FMA guy a while back in a class. The drill consisted of a sticking hands type pre-arranged combination of blocking a downward stab with your same side arm, using your other arm to brush his arm to your inside and then coming up over it to stab with your knife. This was repeated over and over. I've drilled against knives but it wasn't based on anything as complicated as that, just freestyle sparring and drills. Anyway, here is what I'm asking about: This guy brought the knife down in horror flick fashion as we were told and my natural reaction was to catch his arm with both hands near the wrist and elbow. If I were to finish what I started instead of realizing that I got the drill wrong and resetting -- then this would have been immediately followed with me tugging his arm for resistance as I slid a chop into that side of his neck while stepping in for the cross punch. That would be followed by any number of courses of action. If he threw a hook with his other arm I'd replace the chop with a stop hit to that shoulder. Anyway, upon grabbing the guy's arm his reaction was, "Oh, you never want to do that."

Now, I understand that there is a risk that he could turn his wrist and slice at your arm but he could do that just as easily if you block like we were doing in the drill. For me, the grab was only used to stop the arm in place and slightly parry it on my advance to the head. I wasn't just going to stand there holding it for any length of time. Anyway, I use grabs in knife defenses all the time. I don't see what the big deal is about grabbing the knife arm. This kid went on to explain that you should never grab the guy's arm or wrist on a knife defense. I don't agree with that. By the time this guy turned the knife down into my wrist it would be gone and he'd have been punched two or three times in the face. Other grabs can be used with a tug to set him up for a dissarm, be it a striking dissarm or grappling.

Q.) Is that some kind of FMA rule? Do FMA people teach that you should never grab the guy's knife arm or is it JKD or who? If so, why?

5/18/2004 3:53am,

Escrima9

Quote:

Originally posted by manchuria would it be an acceptable strategy to use an article of clothing to tie the knife up?

Improvised weaponary is always an option. As for 'acceptable', anything that works is acceptable. You can practically disable the use of nun-chucku by throwing a jacket/scarf over them. They get tangled in the material.

Swamping the knife with your coat may buy you precious seconds. What did you have in mind?

5/18/2004 4:11am,

manchuria

Basically taking off whatever is on my top half (usually able to do this in a blink of an eye, im not a formal dresser:P) either bundling it and smothering the blade or holding one end in each hand and wrapping it around the blade and arm, then move to at least take the arm and keep it from stabbing me, hopefully locking it and snapping it.

5/18/2004 4:18am,

You could flick him in the face with it. Some guys get pretty skilled at flicking towels in gym class. .. er, on a more serious note, any projectile you might see on the ground could be helpful too. A decent sized rock chucked at his head from less than three feet away isn't as likely to miss as it seems and it would hurt like hell. The threat of that might even keep him at bay while you make your way to a well lighted area. (You could even tell him you are varsity in baseball or a ninja shurriken expert) Of course, you only get one shot so that kind of sucks. Who knows, it might work better than nothing. Of course it would be better if you found a knife on the ground but beggers can't be choosers. A belt or a shoe can be used as a weapon too. Even dirt or sand can be used as a weapon if you throw it in his eyes.

5/18/2004 5:25am,

Zeddy

I've also heard about the shoe one. Don't know if you'll have time to rip it off though.

9chambers, if you had a knife and you wanted to kill someone, would the threat of a rock being thrown stop you? Personally, I don't think it would stop me. Annoy me is probably the most it would do. Also the effects of adrenaline may make targeting sensitive areas hard.

As a layperson with no real solid training in knifework, I'd advocate something simple. Use a feint, or a distraction eg throw a shirt over their face, close the gap, grab the hand and start smacking, preferably with headbutts. More gross body action, less small motion stuff that might be hard to perform in reality.

However, you guys have a lot more experience than me. Have I got bad ideas?

5/18/2004 6:53am,

Ronin

Like I said before, if you are gonna assume, assume he know how to fight.
A jacket will help, a shoe? you will never get it off in time, of course if he hides the knife...
That is the reason to ALWAYS assume that your attacker is armed, you just don't know for sure.
I remember a buddy of mine was taking out a guy from a club, he sees he reach for something in his pocket and slightly turn around, so he nails him, from behind in the kidney, spins him around, grabs the arm in question and twists it, sees the hand empty and release it and pastes him with a shot to the jaw, dropping him.
Was it a knife? yes.
He got a nice little cut on his forearm, nothing to bad, no stitches, but I could have been worst.

5/18/2004 7:41am,

Zeddy

Yup, I think that sounds about right.

I think I've heard a general rule somewhere. If you can't see his palms, assume he's got a weapon and either hot tail it or nail him hard.

If he reaches into his pocket, its sounds like a good idea to me to jam it in there. Strike as you enter I guess to distract him, grab the hand and whack him until he drops?

Of course if he strikes to cover his drawing motion, well then that can be a problem...